


Unclean Spirits

by sternfleck



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Animal Death, Gore, Hunting, Intercrural Sex, M/M, NBC Hannibal S1 vibes if you squint, Praise Kink, Southern Gothic, but it's a better apocalyse than the one we're in, feral survivalist Armitage Hux, meet-not-cute, reclusive rural artist Kylo Ren, scar kink, they're bad people, thigh fucking, who have good sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:15:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck
Summary: Kylo Ren is hiding from the end of the world in his house in the forest. Armitage Hux is in Kylo’s forest, covered in blood that’s not his own. They proceed to improve each other’s apocalypse experience.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 15
Kudos: 52





	Unclean Spirits

**Author's Note:**

> What I want: to hide from the woes of the world inside a 200k+ epic of feral, bloodied, us-against-the-world Kylux road trip apocalypse AU catharsis.
> 
> What I am equipped to deliver: this.
> 
> -
> 
> Warnings for animal death and gore. The hunting and butchery of a deer is a major plot point.
> 
> There’s no pandemic in this AU, though!

On days when he’s not killing them for the stew pot, Kylo sits with the rabbits in the backyard barn and listens to the soft noises they make as they munch their hay. Perched on a ruined suitcase under the barn’s sloped roof, he sketches with charcoal, or paints dark watercolours with diluted ink.

Everything Kylo paints is in stark black and white, because in his head, nothing is stark, nothing is defined. It’s a fog of shades of grey. He’s fallen into the misty chasm between the light and the dark, where nothing can save him.

He murdered his father, walked away with this scar that splits his face, and was acquitted in court, because Kylo’s mother is a US Senator and because Kylo, as if by magic, left no definitive evidence of his involvement in Han Solo’s death. Innocence in court is different from innocence in the world, though. Kylo walks through the streets of the cities where he was raised — Los Angeles, New York, Washington — and hears the thoughts of every stranger. They see his sin. They know his weakness, his shame. They stand in silent judgment, and it torments him.

Kylo thought his father's murder would free him, leave him purified. It left him more conflicted than ever. Kylo lacks the resolute pride of an evil man, and lacks the honour of a good one.

So Kylo doesn’t go to cities anymore.

He hides here on this island in this brackish Southern bay, in the house that once belonged to his grandfather, and he paints horrors. He fills stacks of watercolour pads with images of the violence that plagues his sleep.

He’s alone on the island, or might as well be. The other homes belong to weekenders, and there aren’t many of them. Mostly, the island is evergreen forest. At the edge of the forest lie wide golden marshes where white birds spiral and dive for prey. There’s a short bridge to the mainland, and Kylo drives to town when he needs groceries he can’t grow or gather or raise himself, but mostly, he stays at home. He draws, paints, meditates, performs rituals. He welds pieces of metal together into grim armour and weapons. Sometimes he destroys his creations, or other things.

Nothing happens on this island. That’s why it’s the right place for Kylo. There’s not much to incite his fits of rage or trigger his cold, slow-burning arrogance that leads, always, to violence.

Kylo doesn’t like his routine, but he needs it. Once, he dreamed of bigger things, of power beyond his parents’ wildest fantasies. Now he makes do with isolation. He hides inside, wearing his house like a mask. He has a few animals: black chickens, black goats. The black rabbits in their hutches, rustling, nibbling hay.

The most interesting event in recent memory happened two years ago, when some rich buyer out of Silicon Valley got a few lots on the north end of the island and cleared a swath of forest to place a house there. During the construction process, Kylo hid on occasion in the branches of a tall tree with a clear vantage of the site.

The new buyer proved to be around Kylo’s age, perhaps a year or two older, but young-looking, with a slender shape and too much nervous energy. He marched around in the construction debris with his hands clasped at the small of his back, inspecting everything, straight and neat as a toy soldier in his long black coat. He was hard to miss even from Kylo’s perch in his tree, because the new buyer had bright hair the colour of a conflagration. It left him instantly recognisable even from afar.

Over a few winter months, he built the sort of house Kylo should call hideous, because it’s a complete oddity. It bears no resemblance to the other homes on the island, which, like Kylo’s house, are late 19th century, with porches and cupolas and sloping roofs of battered tin.

But, in spite of its incongruity, Kylo doesn’t hate the new house. It’s black, sleek, space-age. Wedge-shaped, like a stealth bomber. The windows are tinted, and Kylo imagines the walls are bulletproof, soundproof, lined with Faraday cages. The tall fence around the house is topped with a helix of razor wire. Whoever this rich kid is, he’s obsessed with security, and he has no sense of community spirit. Kylo can respect both these traits.

Apart from the construction of the new house, nothing has changed on this island since before Kylo was born, over a quarter of a century ago. Kylo isn’t the type of man to balk at change. This place, this state, and this nation are stuck in the past. If some idiot tech industry upstart is keen to drag this island into the present, Kylo won’t waste wrath on the fool’s futile attempt.

Of course, the construction of the house is all in the past now, too. It’s two years old. Not a new house anymore, except by the standards of this island stuck outside of time.

The rest of the world has moved on, and from the news Kylo hears on his solar-powered radio, not much good has happened.

It’s been one disaster on another for months now. Civil unrest, mass death, economic ruin, environmental collapse. Society has slowly dissolved. No more mail delivered. Few goods in the grocery store. Utilities shut down. No more weekenders visiting the island. Every man for himself.

Little change here on Kylo’s sheltered island, apart from a deepening isolation. That’s fine. He doesn’t want company.

If Kylo still had any contact with his mother Leia, he’s sure the Senator would be at her wits’ end about what’s happened to the world. But she’s alive, at least. He hears her on the broadcasts from the solar radio. She tries to boost global morale, to manage the endless crisis with all her old dignity. She sounds dire, worn thin. Afraid.

Kylo isn’t afraid of the end of the world. He’s painted it too many times, the end of this planet and of countless others. He’s been having visions of the apocalypse since he was only a teen, back when he spent most of his time planning the deaths of the fellow students at his prep school. By now, apocalypse is a part of him. The fact that it’s here, now, for real, feels appropriate. He might starve alone on his island, or some newcomer might arrive and make trouble for him. But the risks are meaningless to Kylo. He has no fear. At last, Kylo’s terrifying inner reality is the outer reality everyone shares.

He sketches another apocalypse now, while he sits in the barn with the rabbits. A dark planet destroyed by the concentrated light of a star. The light and the dark, always at war.

Kylo adds a few more planets to the scene, and blasts the starlight over them as well. If the world is ending, he needs to up his game. Raise the stakes. One planet destroyed is breaking news, but five? That’s art.

As he’s outlining a speckle of moons around the fifth planet, a noise startles Kylo, and he glances up.

Something crashes through the forest around the shed, a desperate bounding. He hears a harried _whuff_ of breath. The sound a deer makes as it flees for cover. 

He turns back to his drawing. He doesn’t mind the island’s deer, even when they eat his garden. But he doesn’t like them, either. Kylo has no space in his heart to care about other beings. He proved this truth when he murdered his father and rejected his mother and his uncle. Kylo Ren needs nothing and no one.

It’s only a minute before another commotion breaks Kylo’s focus. This time, it’s a pounding of feet outside the shed’s door. Crackling twigs. A human voice, cursing with restrained but vivid eloquence.

Kylo reaches to the floor to grasp the hilt of his homemade longsword. He carries it with him out of habit, out of affection for the thing, but also because the island’s retiree weekenders can have bigoted views and deluded estimates of their own fighting prowess. Kylo doesn’t want them to make any mistakes about his strength. He’d walk around with an assault rifle if it would make them leave him alone, but that’s not his style. The sword, at any rate, works just as well. No one bothers him.

Except for whoever has appeared outside his shed.

Kylo rises, peers around the frame of the door, longsword raised.

There’s no one there.

The next instant, there is.

Kylo recognises the stranger at once. He's Kylo's neighbour, the slim young man who built the new house. He must have done a circuit around Kylo’s shed, and re-emerged from the undergrowth in front of the door.

He’s covered in blood.

Absolutely saturated in it, from the crown of his disheveled copper hair to the slivers of his wrists visible above his black tactical gloves.

From his vigorous movements and the voluminous extent of his profanity, it’s clear this blood is not the man’s own.

“Dear?” says the man to Kylo, panting slightly, eyes wild.

No, what he said was, “Deer?”

The young man wields a high-powered hunting bow, glossy black. Not a cheap one, either. No junior archery club for this little psycho. He's dressed in all black, as usual, but instead of his business rags and his long wool coat, he’s in tactical gear. A vest studded with pockets and shotgun cartridges. A pistol at his hip, black steel. Combat boots. Fitted trousers with buckled straps, impractical for a walk in the woods. Knee pads, for some reason. Kylo savours the implication that this guy spends plenty of time on his knees.

“Where did it go? Did you see it? I’ve lost the trail.”

The blood-drenched newcomer has an English accent, the kind that smacks of boarding schools and waxed jackets. _Keep talking,_ Kylo finds himself thinking, but the man doesn’t keep talking. He stares at Kylo coldly and waits for his reply. 

“Why the blood,” is the best Kylo can do. He’s rusty, socially speaking. He doesn’t bother to incline his voice to form a question.

“The bloody _deer_ is why the blood,” says the man, baring his teeth. “I thought I’d killed the creature. I was ready to gut it when it came back to life and nearly knocked me unconscious. I need to locate and dispatch it, or it’s all been a waste.” 

“Bow-hunting isn’t for amateurs. Without a clean hit, it’s a slow death. Cruel.” Kylo has no desire to involve himself in this man’s problems.

The man seethes. “Don’t lecture me. I’m trained. And put down that sword. I’m not going to shoot you unless you give me a reason.”

Kylo is so used to his longsword that he often forgets he’s holding it. He lowers it, but doesn’t let it go.

“Well?” The man emphasises the word as though Kylo should already know what he’s referring to. “If you’re some ridiculous animal rights activist, you ought to help me find the thing and kill it before it suffers.”

“Suffers more,” Kylo corrects, suppressing a smirk.

He doesn’t care about the suffering of any sentient being, but he likes needling this guy. He’s clearly uptight, not used to failure. Maybe it’s not smart, but Kylo wants to see him snap.

The man’s nose, blood-spattered, twitches with repressed rage. He doesn’t reply. He waits.

Kylo blinks, lazy, slow. Pushes his tongue into the inside of his cheek. Then, with his longsword in his hand, he steps out into the forest.

“This way.” Kylo points his index finger.

Kylo knows the forest. It doesn’t take him long to find the deer. It’s nearly dead, slumped at the base of a tree, an arrow through its throat. It wasn’t a bad shot, only bad luck that it missed the spine.

Kylo raises his longsword to cleave the deer’s head from its body, but the young hunter is quicker. He draws his handgun, flicks off the safety, and, two-handed, blasts a round into the deer’s head, point blank.

The sound is crippling, as though Kylo himself is the one who has been shot in the head. Perhaps one day his hearing will return, but he’s not holding out hope. The hunter, however, seems unfazed.

He holsters his gun again and gazes evenly at Kylo. He’s standing close. He’s an inch or two shorter than Kylo, and his eyes, set against the scarlet blood on his face, are bright green.

“Hux,” says the young man. Kylo can hardly hear it through the aftermath of the gunshot, but he reads the man’s lips.

“My name,” says Hux, through the ringing in Kylo’s head. “Armitage Hux. But don’t ever call me Armitage.”

“I’m Kylo Ren,” Kylo half-shouts.

Hux sticks out his hand, the hand he used to fire his pistol. Kylo shifts his longsword to his left hand and shakes.

Hux is wearing gloves, so there’s no contact with his skin. For a flash of a moment, Kylo wishes it were otherwise.

When Hux breaks the handshake, his slim hand leaves a bloody print across the palm of Kylo’s broad one.

“I’ve soiled you,” he remarks without emotion, noticing Kylo’s gaze.

“I already have blood on my hands,” Kylo says, turning to go.

“Wait.” Hux’s tone is tight, indignant. “You’re not going to make me carry this deer back to my house alone, are you, Kylo Ren?”

Kylo shrugs. “You’re the hunter.”

“Yes, but you’re much stronger than I am. Cooperation would be more efficient.”

Hux is eyeing Kylo’s arms, his shoulders. There’s a hungry, evaluative look in his eyes. Kylo would like to hide his disfigured face, but when Hux’s eyes rise to Kylo’s scar, his tongue flickers across his bloodstained lips. Kylo swallows.

“All right.” He bends and grasps the deer’s forelegs. The animal is still warm to the touch. Kylo’s palm leaves a smear of blood on its fur. It’s the blood that was on Hux’s glove. 

“I was planning to field dress it, but with your help, I can butcher it properly at home and save the organs. I loathe waste. Some of it can’t be helped, of course, but isn’t this superior to a factory farm? Not that we have that option, now that everything on the planet has fallen to bits.”

As he grabs the deer’s back legs and lifts the carcass, Hux babbles, as though his bloodlust has gotten the better of him and tipped him over the edge into a full adrenaline rush. Kylo, in spite of himself, finds it endearing.

He recalls his hours spent watching Hux from the treetops. The way Hux moved around the construction site, authoritative, but faintly ridiculous, too. Up close, his awkwardness is less ridiculous, more charming. He’s the type who could build a nuclear reactor, but couldn’t drive a car. Most likely a virgin, and definitely a screamer with a filthy mouth.

Kylo doesn’t have a type — he hasn’t slept with anyone since he dropped out of college — but if he did, Hux would be close to it.

The island isn’t large, and the forest spits them out at the edge of Hux’s property before Kylo has time to work up a sweat. Hux leads him to a gate below the razor wire and unlocks it with a numeric code.

Hux butchers the deer on a steel table over the grass, vacuum-sealing each cut of meat into plastic and piling the sealed pieces into a chest of ice. Kylo watches.

“I have a walk-in freezer for meat,” Hux explains, as though that’s an ordinary perk of a nice house, and not a serial killer red flag. But Kylo has too many of the same tendencies to cast stones. If he had a flag for himself, it would be a red one.

“Come inside? I can’t carry this alone, either.” Hux taps the top of the ice chest, marking it with a streak of blood. “You’ve been indispensable.”

Kylo acquiesces, maintaining his haughty silence as he lifts his side of the cooler. He should have brought the sheath for his longsword. It’s awkward to haul it around, now that he knows Hux isn’t planning on taunting Kylo for his social quirks or his gay tendencies. Hux can’t cast stones either. They’re too alike.

There are stairs and a ramp up to the front door, both tiled with black stone. Hux opts for the ramp. Instead of taking out a key, Hux leans close to a dark glassy shape that must be a biometric reader. He stares, unblinking, and the door opens.

Inside, the house is as black as its outside, with interesting columnar lights set into the walls. Off-grid electricity, naturally. Hux takes his boots off at the door, and Kylo, out of politeness, imitates him. The first room is a kitchen, followed by a wide, bright living room with dark chairs and an ice-blue sofa. Then there’s a hall, dark and windowless, lined with many closed doors.

The house looks like a spaceship from a science fiction film, and not one of the good guys’ spaceships. It’s the sort of place Kylo would come up with for one of his drawings. Kylo hides his enthusiasm, his approval. If this were his house, or even a vacation rental, he’d already be trashing it, destroying the walls and furnishings out of sheer aesthetic excitement. But it’s Hux’s house, and Hux is a stranger with a loaded handgun, so Kylo chooses restraint.

“I’m not a good host,” disclaims Hux, when they’ve deposited the cooler at the mouth of the walk-in freezer. “I need to wash off this blood before I transfer it to my surroundings. I’m going to have a shower. Amuse yourself for seven minutes. Don’t touch anything.”

Kylo nods, caught off guard by Hux's forthrightness. He wanders back down the hall. The living room has a panoramic window that overlooks the water, with a chrome handrail along it like the bow of a ship. Kylo sets his longsword on the end table by the sofa and stands at the window in the middle of the view. He watches silent lightning dart out of the black clouds across the bay.

As promised, Hux is out of the shower within seven minutes, his hair brushed back and shining with pomade. His skin glows as if he’s been made new. Instead of his tactical gear, he wears fitted black trousers and a white Oxford shirt with a button-down collar. It’s a professional ensemble.

On his feet, Hux wears a sleek pair of house slippers made of black silk. His ankles are pale, slim. Christ, is Kylo to the point of ogling a bare ankle? This is dire.

Hux stands next to him at the railing, his shoulder close to Kylo’s. They watch the approaching storm together, before Kylo notices that Hux isn’t watching the view at all. He’s watching Kylo.

“What?” Kylo nearly snarls the word.

“You’re worth looking at,” says Hux, unperturbed. “I won’t, if you’d rather me not. But I assume that’s why you came here.”

“For you to look at me?”

“For sex, Kylo Ren. If that’s even your real name.”

“It’s real,” says Kylo. “And just Kylo is fine.”

“Kylo,” says Hux.

In his crisp accent, the name is murder, or sex, or one of the other things Kylo enjoys more than he ought to. Kylo grips the railing, fouling it with dried blood.

“You want to have sex with me. You brought me here to have sex with me.”

“We’re living through the end of the world.” Hux enunciates clearly, as though Kylo is an imbecile. “It’s an apocalypse. I want you. This isn’t complicated. We don’t have much time.”

“You don’t want to die a virgin?” It’s half a joke, but Kylo doesn’t smile.

“I’m not a virgin.” Hux avoids his gaze, his cheeks colouring. “I’m selective. My standards are high.”

“And I meet them?” Kylo can’t keep the surprise from his voice.

“You’re clearly insane. You’re some sort of recluse. I appreciate a challenge, and I’ll never fuck anyone again who isn’t twisted and depraved.”

“Flattering. You’re pure charm, Hux.”

“So I’ve been told.” Hux matches his sarcasm. “Well, are you up for it? My housemates Phasma and Unamo will return soon with whatever provisions they could buy, beg, borrow, or steal. It’s not that I mind fucking while they’re in the house, but they’ll want to know how my hunt went, and I want to tell them.”

Hux has housemates, then. It’s reassuring information. Kylo may be a friendless outcast, but at least Hux isn’t. Kylo shouldn’t be glad to hear there are more people riding out the collapse on his island, competing with him for resources. But, in spite of himself, he is.

“You’ll tell them about me.”

“Obviously I’ll tell them about you. You were instrumental. The brave knight rushing to my aid. Unless you prefer to keep your existence a secret. I’m not an authority on the rules of daily life as a recluse.”

“I’m not a recluse,” says Kylo, though, of course, he is. “Tell them. It doesn’t matter. Let’s fuck.”

“Do you have condoms?”

It’s a preposterous question. This is Hux’s house. He has a compound bow, a handgun, a walk-in freezer, but no condoms?

Kylo stares at him, unblinking.

“I wasn’t expecting to fuck anyone,” Hux deflects. “I was focused on survival. You know as well as I do we’re the only homeowners on this island below the age of 65.”

He’s not wrong. But Kylo doesn’t have condoms. He doesn’t even have his wallet or his long-dead smartphone. He also doesn’t have any diseases, but Hux doesn’t seem like the type to take him at his word.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hux says. “Fuck my thighs, for today. We’ll plan the rest out later.”

The rest? A billowing heat fills Kylo’s chest, like he’s standing too close to a forge. It seeps into his limbs as a form of kinetic energy. He needs to move, to take it out on something.

He slides his hand down the railing, to grip Hux’s.

“There,” says Hux, with an approving glance at their joined hands. “That’s a step, isn’t it? Shall we kiss?”

Kylo shakes his head. “Not here. The blood all over you was enough foreplay.”

Hux blinks, draws in his breath. His pupils flare wide, as though the light in the room has dropped, though it hasn’t. His open gaze flickers across Kylo’s face, like he struggles to believe what he’s seeing.

He slides his palm up Kylo’s chest, grips the high collar of his black quilted jacket. His lips are flushed, almost sneering.

“If we survive this,” Hux breathes, “you’ll never get rid of me.”

It’s a bizarre thing to say, threatening, far too intimate, but Kylo is hard at the thought. The whole world has shattered around them, and here in the ruins, Kylo has found this bright strange savage creature who calls himself by his surname and doesn’t hesitate to shake hands when his are soaked with blood.

Hux pulls Kylo by the hand towards his bedroom. Kylo’s socks slide on the slick grey floor of the hallway, and Hux smirks at the sight. This, Kylo gathers, is as close as Hux gets to smiling. One more thing they have in common.

Hux’s bedroom is like the rest of the house: sleek, dark, extraterrestrial. There’s a fluorescent column of light set into the wall, shaded with a steel sheet where long ovals have been punched out to let the light through. A desk in the corner, made of steel too, and bolted to the floor. No papers on it, no books. Only a slim tablet on a charging pad, screen black. The bed looks as though a machine has arranged the black sheets and blankets. The room is windowless, small, so lacking in personal touches that their absence is a personal touch in itself.

“What do you like?”

Hux sits at the edge of the bed, toeing off his house slippers. He crosses his ankles in a nervous way, and, when he asks this question, doesn’t bother to look at Kylo, or isn’t able to. His fingers hover at his throat, pale skin against the pale cloth of his shirt as he prepares to unbutton it.

Kylo hovers next to the wall. He’s not sure how to answer Hux’s question. He’s in the habit of surviving, of hating, of fighting the world. He’s not in the habit of liking _anything_ , especially not the things he might do in the bedrooms of odd, handsome, bloodthirsty young men. 

When Hux manages to raise his eyes, his face is pinched, his voice condescending.

“You’re not obligated, you know. I’m trying to make this enjoyable. It’s better if we both have information. I like getting fucked, especially by a man like you. I like being held down. If you’re inspired to say filthy things, I’m not opposed. I’ll be rough with you, and you may be rough with me.”

“A man like me?” Kylo keeps his voice arrogant, but his curiosity is genuine. He wants to know what Hux sees. It’s been a long time since anyone saw Kylo.

Hux smirks again. “Well. I don’t know you, obviously. But I saw you watching me when I was having this place built, and I’ve seen you around your messy little farm. You’re intense. Obsessive. Chaotic. You can withstand the worst of my impulses.”

This isn’t at all what Kylo was expecting. He’d assumed Hux would go for some trite line about how Kylo is tall, rustic, shredded, wild. He’d never considered that Hux might have been watching him even as Kylo did his watching. There’s preamble here between them. A dance initiated long before the collapse of the world beyond this island’s shores.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Hux adds, “that you’re so pretty.”

Hux spits out the word like a dare, his cheeks colouring. Kylo searches his face for signs of insincerity, and finds none.

 _Pretty_. It’s not a word that has ever been applied to Kylo Ren.

“Surely you’re aware?” Hux’s eyes scan Kylo from toe to head. “You’re like...like a silent starlet. Those enormous eyes. I’d like to put my hands all through your hair.”

Hux pauses, gauging Kylo’s reaction. Kylo, for his part, is open-lipped in awe. His body fills with a heat that makes him weak. Hux is admiring him. Hux wants him.

He wants Hux.

“Your lips were made for sex,” Hux hisses, telling this to Kylo in the strictest confidence. “And your skin, your scar, all of it. Those birthmarks on your face, they’re spectacular. You’re not handsome, not exactly, but you’re remarkably pretty. I have a weakness for beauty.”

“Keep talking,” Kylo orders.

Hux’s nose moves in an almost imperceptible twitch. He doesn’t like being told what to do, then, in spite of his alleged fondness for rough handling.

To make up for it, to restore the balance of things, Kylo sheds his quilted jacket, and tugs his black shirt one-handed over his head.

“ _Very_ pretty,” says Hux, after the moment it takes for him to catch his breath. “Elegant musculature. You’re built well. Long legs. Lovely ti—ah, chest.” 

Kylo can imagine what Hux meant to say, and it makes him ache with want. The praise for his body goes to his head even as the blood leaves it.

“Come here,” says Hux. “I’d like to touch. You’re timid, I know. I’ll work slowly.”

“I’m not timid,” Kylo snarls as he approaches Hux. “Stop treating me like a creature to tame.”

Kylo’s hands land on Hux’s shoulders with a pressure just shy of bruising. If he’s been invited to play rough, he won’t reject the offer.

“You’re a person,” says Hux, unfazed. “People can be timid. I played my own part as a cringing lackey until society began to fall apart. Now, might makes right. I do what I must do.”

Hux tips his head back, baring his throat.

“I know you must want me too,” Hux supplies. “Underneath you. Slick, tight. I’ll put my hands through your hair and tell you how pretty you are until you’re sick of hearing it.”

Hux’s pale eyelashes flicker. In this light, his eyes are not green, but steely grey.

There’s no reason for Kylo to delay. He should throw Hux on the bed and treat him like any other well-made thing to destroy. But Hux’s very boldness sets Kylo off-balance. He can’t tear Hux apart; Hux will match him at every turn.

Instead, he slides his hands to the top button of Hux’s shirt. His thumb fits perfectly in the hollow at the base of Hux’s throat, and Hux’s breath catches when Kylo strokes him there. Sensitive.

Kylo starts with the buttons at the top of his shirt, and Hux starts from the bottom. When they meet in the middle, Kylo bends to kiss Hux as he pulls his shirt open.

Hux gasps into Kylo’s mouth, a warm wet gust that tastes of mint. He brushed his teeth, then, in addition to having a shower. Hux’s hot skin still smells like soap, and he’s a terrible kisser, making far too many eager moans when Kylo licks his tongue, his teeth, the inside of his mouth. It’s messy and breathy and it’s enough to make Kylo ache in his pants, even with his cock untouched.

Hux’s hair is wet where Kylo grabs it. Hux falls back on the bed, pulling Kylo with him, until Hux’s head is nestled in the dark linen-covered pillows and Kylo has him pinned by his shoulders once again.

“Please,” Hux is saying against Kylo’s lips. “I’ve been bad. I’m a criminal. Show me no mercy.”

Kylo pulls back. Hux’s eyes are black and glassy, out of focus, and he’s pushing his hips against Kylo’s thigh. Even through the layers of cloth between them, Hux’s cock is hot. Kylo wants to wrap his hand around it and let Hux fuck his rough palm dry until he chafes.

“I’m worse,” Kylo says recklessly. “I’m a murderer.”

He’s not in the habit of confessing his crimes, even with the double jeopardy clause sheltering him from retrial. But Hux is insane enough to be into this, he’s sure.

Kylo isn’t wrong. Hux twists under him and makes a wrecked noise, choking on a moan. He’s fierce, fevered. When his hazy eyes focus on Kylo’s face, it’s as though no one has ever really seen Kylo before. Like this is the first time.

“Who did you kill?”

“My father.”

Hux lets out a sharp breath that’s almost a laugh. His face is wild and half-admiring. He spreads his legs under Kylo’s hips, wrapping his calves around the backs of Kylo’s thighs, and pulls him close, hands in Kylo’s hair, so that they’re nose to nose.

This time, when Hux kisses him, it’s gentle, careful, searching. Hux licks Kylo’s lips, soft and hot, and takes Kylo’s fat lower lip between his own, sucking at it. He nuzzles Kylo’s cheek, stroking his hair, and this time, Kylo is the one who moans into Hux’s mouth. He ruts into Hux’s mattress, but the friction doesn’t satisfy. Hux is slim beneath him, his shirt open, his chest bare and hot and smooth against Kylo’s.

“You’re not worse,” Hux whispers, his lips to Kylo’s scarred cheek. “Fathers deserve what they get. You’re pretty. You’re allowed to do anything you want.”

Hux opens his mouth. He presses the tip of his tongue to the nerveless cleft of Kylo’s scar, licking into the schism between skin and skin. Tasting it. His tongue moves higher, eager and sharp. Kylo's eyes flutter shut.

No one has ever done this before. No one has even kissed Kylo since he got the scar. The mere idea of it, plus the praise and the heat of Hux’s breath on his face, are enough to take Kylo closer to climax than he wants to be, when Hux is mostly dressed and Kylo is still in his black jeans.

“Stop. I’ll come,” Kylo says, pulling back. “Take off your pants.”

Hux shucks off his shirt first. Around his forearm there’s an I-shaped band of black. A sheath for a concealed knife. He strips off his trousers and his underwear, but the knife stays on.

That’s fine. Hux is dangerous. Kylo is dangerous too. The world is dangerous now, too, far more dangerous than either one of them alone.

But the ruined world versus the two of them together? It’s a toss-up.

Kylo removes his jeans. No underwear to take off. He doesn’t like the restriction.

Hux has a bottle in his hand, taken from the drawer of the nightstand. He squeezes a wide clear pearl of lubricant onto his fingertips, then slicks his inner thighs. He rubs the extra over his cock for good measure, tensing at his own touch.

It’s a nice cock, as shapely as the rest of Hux. Pink, clean, well-groomed, with the balls drawn up tight and the foreskin retracted. It’s the right size for Kylo’s mouth. If Kylo doesn’t ruin this like he’s ruined everything else in his life, maybe he’ll get a chance to suck it.

“Come here,” Hux murmurs. Another drop of lube from the bottle to his palm. “I’ll prepare you, if you’ve calmed down. Do you have a belt? Tie my legs together at the knees. It’s easier that way.”

Kylo scrabbles on the floor and extracts his belt from his jeans. He cinches it around Hux’s knees, and trails his hands up Hux’s thighs, testing their slickness. The hair there is downy, sparse, and the skin is smooth enough that Kylo doesn’t want to stop touching it. Hux shivers.

“Go on,” he prompts.

He reaches for Kylo, and when Kylo falls on top of Hux, catching himself with his hands on either side of Hux’s head, Hux wraps his hands around Kylo’s cock right away.

“You’re pretty here, too,” he whispers, swirling his soft slick palm over the head. “Lovely cock.”

Kylo jerks away. It’s too good, too much.

“This is how we’ll do it,” Hux says. “You tell me how wicked I am, and I’ll praise you. You can kiss me anywhere, touch me anywhere. No hitting. No choking. But you’re allowed to bite. Leave your mark.”

Kylo nods, eyes wide, mouth slack. Hux, with his fine bones, his fierce gaze, his lips that rise and fall at the top like a hunter’s bow. The madness that simmers just below the surface of his tight control.

“Are you really a criminal?” Kylo isn’t sure what is roleplay or reality, and doesn’t care, except that he wants to know Hux, wants to know what brought him here to this island at the edge of nowhere.

Hux pinches his lips together, as though he’s offended by the question. “Of course. How do you think I got this house before age thirty? I had to misrepresent my business fundamentals to eleven different venture capitalists to get this kind of money. And that’s hardly the worst of my crimes. Suffice it to say, people are dead because of me. I’m terrible, Kylo. I’ve done terrible things, and I regret none of it.”

He thrusts his hips up, impatient. _Why talk crime when I have these soft, slick thighs for you to fuck,_ is what Hux means. 

But Kylo wants to tease him, and he wants context. He sits up, lays his hand on Hux’s hip, fingertips an inch from Hux’s erection.

“Tell me why you’re here,” Kylo says, squeezing Hux’s hip hard enough to bruise. “Nobody wants to be on this island. Everyone else is gone.”

“I’ve always been, ah, a contrarian thinker.” Hux’s hips twitch, uncontrolled. “Please, Kylo. Don’t question me now. Please touch me.”

“It’s the end of the world. Why spend it here? Even the retirees got out.”

Hux stills his hips with great effort, and speaks as though he’s delivering a report. “This house is a military-grade off-grid bunker stocked with provisions for half a decade. It’s as far from Silicon Valley as I could get without going back to the UK, which wasn’t an option, for family reasons. No one I’ve wronged will find me here, especially not now that the rule of law has gone the way of everything else we lost in the collapse.” A ghost of a smile flickers across Hux’s lips.

“Why build this place to begin with? Two years ago, the world was fine. Nobody saw this coming.”

“I saw it coming. This was bound to happen. All societies fall to ruins in the end. I lived through disasters as a child. My only goal has been survival.”

Hux is one of those paranoid survivalists, then. A nervous kid with too much imagination and just enough charm to pass himself off as a legitimate businessman, at least in some circles.

“I had a weapons tech company,” Hux says. “Five years ago, the venture capitalists were throwing millions at anyone with a black turtleneck and a pulse. It couldn’t last. I took what I could and made a backup plan for myself.”

Five years ago, Kylo killed his father. He and Hux were both in California then. Both doing dark deeds, securing their legacies. Two bodies in similar orbits, unaware of each other, but fated already to intersect.

Hux struggles up onto his elbows. “Kylo, would you please focus on the task at hand? I’ve leaked all over my stomach. I’ll be dehydrated at this rate. You know my inglorious career arc, and I know you’re a murderous recluse, which is more than I need to know to want to come all over your spectacular chest. Is small talk essential? Is this what arouses you, you deviant?”

Kylo only stares at Hux. Then he lowers himself, covering Hux’s body with his, dragging his chest across Hux’s cock as he kisses Hux’s sternum, his candy-pink nipples, his throat. Hux moans with relief, and again, more avidly, as Kylo slips his cock between Hux’s thighs.

Fuck, Hux is tight around him. Not as tight and soft as the inside of his body would be, but delicious all the same. His skin is blazing hot, and he squirms under Kylo, matching his rhythm, like he’s getting off on this as much as Kylo is.

“God, yes, fuck, you’re big,” Hux is saying. “Lift up. I want to look at you, to see your pretty face.”

“You’re bad,” says Kylo, to see what will happen. “You’ve ruined people’s lives.”

Hux turns his face to the side and claws at his own nipples, eyes flickering shut, mouth helplessly open.

“Fuck, Kylo, yes, I’m terrible, ah. You’re so _big, fuck,_ please, harder. Punish me.” 

Kylo wants to kiss Hux’s cheek, to whisper dark things into his ear, but he can only reach Hux’s chin, his throat, so he fucks harder and nips at Hux’s skin where he can reach. The scent of soap. The taste of body heat, of new sweat, of Hux.

Hux’s cock rubs against Kylo’s stomach with each stroke, and Kylo keeps his chest tight over Hux’s, to maximise the friction. He’s holding back his own orgasm. He wants Hux to come first, to go weak underneath him. Hux is still talking, and Kylo wants to shut him up, for the pure satisfaction of seeing him too aroused to put words together.

“That’s good, Kylo, you’re so good, yes, yes, bite me, oh, I’m close, if you bite me I’ll—”

Kylo pulls back. He wants this to last. He watches Hux’s expression turn from bliss to thwarted fury, and the sight of his bared teeth makes Kylo freeze, using all his powers to hold back his climax.

“You wretched bastard,” Hux cries, his chest heaving. “Don’t you _dare_ disobey me.” 

He rakes his hands up Kylo’s back, leaving scratches deep enough to bleed, and then his hands are in Kylo’s hair, tugging Kylo’s mouth up to his, and Kylo slips out from between his thighs and, as the pain hits, Kylo gasps and comes in thick white spurts all over Hux’s stomach, his cock, his hip.

“No control,” hisses Hux, though not without approval. “You little tease, ah, shooting off all over me without permission. Put your big hand on me and finish me off, I’m so close, please, Kylo, please, I’m so close for you.”

He kisses Kylo, all crashing teeth. Kylo, still hazy from his orgasm, takes Hux in a tight grip, licking into his mouth and stroking the silky underside of Hux’s cock with the pad of his thumb.

When Hux comes, he arches his back and makes a series of broken noises against Kylo’s lips. Kylo pulls away, letting Hux’s come hit his chest. The muscles of Hux’s belly tense and twitch under his soft skin, and his hands clench in the sheets, and even when he’s spilled the last of his come, he lies with his eyes shut, taking great wrenching breaths, as though spasms of pleasure still overwhelm him.

His hair is a mess. Kylo strokes it, and Hux moans through his nose at the touch.

Slowly, Hux opens his eyes. They widen as he looks at Kylo, taking in the sight of his chest splattered with white.

“Kylo,” murmurs Hux, and his eyes flutter shut again.

Kylo grabs his t-shirt from the floor and turns it inside out, wiping up the mess from his chest and from Hux’s hip and belly. Hux lets him do it, motionless, eyes shut, with the smallest smile on his lips. When they’re both cleaner than they were, Kylo collapses next to Hux, face half-buried in Hux’s dark pillows.

Hux’s eyes open. He stares at Kylo across the air between their bodies. Then he lifts his hand. Kylo does likewise.

Their fingers meet in space.

Hux grins. It’s unsettling, unpracticed, not meant for an arrogant face like Hux’s. But it’s genuine.

Kylo doesn’t smile. But he blinks, and takes a deep breath, and hopes Hux will somehow understand that Kylo is better off now than he was this morning, when he was sketching the end of the world with his charcoal pencil in his tiny barn with the black rabbits chewing their hay.

“Well done,” breathes Hux at last. He sounds like he’s commending an employee. He also sounds fucked-out and struck with awe.

Kylo strokes the underside of Hux’s wrist with his thumb, the same way he stroked Hux’s cock to make him come. The skin there is soft, tender with veins and tendons. Hux shivers, bites his lip.

“I have to go,” Kylo says.

As if there’s somewhere he has to be, now, at the end of the world. There’s only his dark house filled with homemade weapons and paintings of tragedy, with jars of last year’s comb honey, with skulls he found in the woods. His grandfather’s old clothes. Dried herbs, ritual ashes, dog-eared books of grim philosophy. Kylo’s life floods back into his awareness, like he’s waking from a dream.

“You’ll come back, won’t you?”

Hux, bare-skinned, with bite marks crimson on his shoulders. His pale lashes, his pale eyes filled with drowsy wonder. He looks much smaller than he does in his long coat. More innocent. Kylo is overcome with some strange impulse to take Hux into his arms.

Kylo has never been one to deny his impulses. He doesn’t deny this one, but he restricts it. He squeezes Hux’s arm too hard until Hux makes a noise of complaint.

“You’re mad,” Hux whispers, eyes wide. “That’s a yes, then. Unhand me, you crazy fuck.” There’s no edge to the insult, though. Hux's voice is almost affectionate, almost kind.

The world is in tatters. Outside this island, nothing is working. But Hux’s arm is warm in his hand.

Kylo relaxes his hold, and, after a moment, Hux relaxes, too. They break apart. The moment is finished.

“I’ll come back,” says Kylo, in a voice without expression.

Hux, sharp-faced, nods and turns away. He slips the belt from around his knees and drops it on top of Kylo’s fallen jacket. Then Hux takes his own clothes from the floor to dress himself again.

When Kylo is dressed again too, the come on the inside of his shirt sticks to his stomach, his chest, even his back. He doesn’t mind. There’s something hot about being marked with their shared filth. It’s not safe, though, with the open scratches down his back. Kylo realises too late.

“I’m clean,” says Hux, when Kylo mentions this. “Untouched since my last clean test. You are as well, I assume? This island is hardly a rich ground for wanton behaviour.”

“If you knew I was clean—”

“I _like_ it between my thighs. You saw how hard I came. You can fuck me the other way if you’d prefer. It’s intimate, though.” Hux says this as though intimacy is another sexually transmitted disease.

Kylo is standing. Hux is sitting on the bed. Kylo lays his palm on the top of Hux’s head.

“No intimacy,” Kylo says with authority, to reassure them both. “Only fucking.”

Hux nods. The motion pushes the crown of his head into Kylo’s palm. His eyes fall shut at the touch.

Once, only once, Kylo strokes his fingers through Hux's copper hair.

Kylo turns, steps out into the hall. Hux is behind him, treading softly in his slippers.

“Phasma and Unamo might be here by now. You don’t have to meet them this time, unless you’d like to.”

But Phasma and Unamo aren’t there. Kylo gathers his longsword from the living room, with a last look out of the broad panoramic windows. The storm on the horizon hasn’t hit yet. Perhaps it’s moving in the other direction. The thought doesn’t cheer him. Kylo’s vegetable garden needs rain.

He laces his thick boots on again. He doesn’t say goodbye to Hux, and Hux doesn’t say goodbye, either. They stare at each other for a long moment, wordless, caught. Then Kylo turns away and lopes down the ramp.

“The exit code is two seven eight two,” Hux calls after him, but when Kylo glances back, Hux is gone.

By the time Kylo is home, the first drops of rain are hitting his tin roof. He feeds the animals for the night, the rabbits and the chickens and the goats. In his house, he lights candles until the dark breathes with the flicker of their flames.

He thinks of Hux in the forest, that first sight of him, soaked in blood. He thinks of Leia on the radio, preaching hope in a time of doom. He thinks of the dead, of all the nameless figures lost to the chaos that has spared Kylo's island so far. He thinks of all the things that are ending or already over, all the empty cities he once knew, and his heart pounds, because Kylo, in spite of his crimes, is alive, and has somehow been rewarded with this new thing with Hux, this fierce and bright potential.

Kylo does push-ups on the rug in his wrecked living room, under the thunderous sound of falling water, until he exhausts himself and can do no more.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Revelation 16:13.
> 
> Finally, an AU where I can write both of them vicious and unstable. Posting AUs feels personal and scary in a way canonverse fic doesn’t. Yikes yikes yikes.
> 
> I have a sequel fic in this ‘verse partially written, if anyone wants more of the bay island bad boys. It’s less focused and more slice-of-lifey, but maybe that’s not a bad thing...? Chuck me your votes of confidence in the comments.
> 
> You can find me on twitter at [sternfleck](https://twitter.com/sternfleck).


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